4 ms·

Usual disclaimer: does not apply to most civilized countries with mandatory overtime pay (including nighttime and weekend multipliers), maximum hours worked per

Usual disclaimer: does not apply to most civilized countries with mandatory overtime pay (including nighttime and weekend multipliers), maximum hours worked per week etc.. I'm still amazed that there is so much migration into the US at this point. (But I also do get it.)

pkaye 6y ago
Then why do so many engineers come to work in the US?
- irrational 6y ago
  Is this still the case?
  - MiroF 6y ago
    Yes? As long as the pay differences are what they are, why wouldn't it be?
    - irrational 6y ago
      I thought the Trump administration was working overtime to limit HB1, immigration,etc.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  Good question. I don't personally know any, so here's pure conjecture, and please read it as such. I'm totally open for feedback! (I'm internally sort-of answering "Why wouldn't you move to Germany?" since that is where I was born) * English is easy. It's probably already required to become an engineer. So you move to an English-speaking country. * Everything is cheap. Labor is cheap, bureaucracy is low. If you dream about starting your own company/idea/dream some time, the US seems like the place to do it. * The people have a reputation of being easy-going (if superficial) and the country is already culturally mixed. You're not going to stand out. * It is culturally dominating. Name any piece of popular media that was made in the last 50 years and chances are 95% that it's American. That's not a good reason, but I would say it's a strong biasing factor.
kryptiskt 6y ago
Maybe because we European software developers earn a small fraction of what US ones do?
metacritic12 6y ago
Right -- in those "civilized" countries (you probably mean the higher income European countries?) the total pay is just 20 Euros an hour net of taxes, so software engineers' salaries even with overtime don't match the US. But at least your boss can't play these games.
- est31 6y ago
  Switzerland is kind of an exception to that, but their market is pretty small.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  For skilled programmers, pay in Germany tends to be $5k to $6k per month after all taxes and the highest level of health insurance and a generous retirement insurance and disability and private unemployment insurance (additional to the government one). That is enough for an entire family to rent a house and live a very comfortable life pretty much everywhere in Germany, except maybe Munich city center. There are strong overtime protections, I've heard from people who were paid 4x their regular salary because they were called in on a Sunday. I'm sure the FAANG pay better, but maybe house + family + free time is nicer than high numbers in your online banking?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The US is pretty awesome if you're in the top 10%. Of course, more than 10% of the US population likes to believe they are in the top 10% or have a chance at being in the top 10% in the future.
- orf 6y ago
  You’re only fooling yourself if you look at the raw values rather than quality of life and relative cost of living.
  - est31 6y ago
    You could live in the US for a few years, and then come back to Germany so that you can e.g. buy a house without having to pay for it for decades.
jamiequint 6y ago
Then again, maybe the lack of insane regulations on labor (amongst other things) is why the US has managed to produce new, highly-valuable companies at a much higher clip than Europe has, and is also the reason why software engineers in Europe get paid far less than their counterparts in America.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  Ignoring the bias in your chosen language, I do somewhat agree with your point. I would also say that "highly-valuable" is not what a country should strive for its companies to be. I would argue that the good of its citizens should be - and rather than $10b of company valuation, the citizens would profit more from that $10b going into labor regulations and social security.
onion2k 6y ago
It happens in the UK. I know plenty of devs here who complain about the "crunch" on projects that really don't need it. Mind you, I also think there's an element of developers lowballing estimates and then putting in extra time to make themselves much more productive than they actually are. I've worked with a few people who management believed were fantastic but who actually just worked 50% longer hours. I fight hard against those kinds of people being on my team because it destroys morale and absolutely ruins my burndown charts any time they're not available.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  > [it] absolutely ruins my burndown charts any time they're not available. This is the one point where I'm very happy that my work committed to the (legally already obligatory) time tracking. If you do 20h overtime, that just means you spent 20h extra on this sprint, and SP/h should be unaffected (thus also the burndown chart).
  - onion2k 6y ago
    If you do 20h overtime, that just means you spent 20h extra on this sprint, and SP/h should be unaffected (thus also the burndown chart). In my experience time isn't recorded, or isn't recorded very accurately, especially when it's unsanctioned and unpaid overtime. Burndown charts report the daily change rather than the hourly change. Consequently it looks like stories are moving quickly but really it's just that more effort is being put in every day, but the chart doesn't reflect that.
    - ThePadawan 6y ago
      Now that you mention it, that was also what our burndown charts looked like (unaffacted). Our Scrum Master did use a factor of "actual hours worked vs. planned hours worked" to determine how accurate our SP totals per sprint were. I.e. if we did 100SP in Sprint 1 with no overtime, then 100SP in Sprint 2 with 20h of overtime, we underestimate the SP in Sprint 2. I am generally not a fan of time tracking (especially not down to minute accuracy or per-story), but I see sth. like "8.7 hours worked on Tuesday" as a useful but not misleading measure.

pkaye 6y ago

Then why do so many engineers come to work in the US?

irrational 6y ago
Is this still the case?
- MiroF 6y ago
  Yes? As long as the pay differences are what they are, why wouldn't it be?
  - irrational 6y ago
    I thought the Trump administration was working overtime to limit HB1, immigration,etc.
ThePadawan 6y ago
Good question. I don't personally know any, so here's pure conjecture, and please read it as such. I'm totally open for feedback! (I'm internally sort-of answering "Why wouldn't you move to Germany?" since that is where I was born) * English is easy. It's probably already required to become an engineer. So you move to an English-speaking country. * Everything is cheap. Labor is cheap, bureaucracy is low. If you dream about starting your own company/idea/dream some time, the US seems like the place to do it. * The people have a reputation of being easy-going (if superficial) and the country is already culturally mixed. You're not going to stand out. * It is culturally dominating. Name any piece of popular media that was made in the last 50 years and chances are 95% that it's American. That's not a good reason, but I would say it's a strong biasing factor.

kryptiskt 6y ago

Maybe because we European software developers earn a small fraction of what US ones do?

metacritic12 6y ago

Right -- in those "civilized" countries (you probably mean the higher income European countries?) the total pay is just 20 Euros an hour net of taxes, so software engineers' salaries even with overtime don't match the US. But at least your boss can't play these games.

est31 6y ago
Switzerland is kind of an exception to that, but their market is pretty small.
fxtentacle 6y ago
For skilled programmers, pay in Germany tends to be $5k to $6k per month after all taxes and the highest level of health insurance and a generous retirement insurance and disability and private unemployment insurance (additional to the government one). That is enough for an entire family to rent a house and live a very comfortable life pretty much everywhere in Germany, except maybe Munich city center. There are strong overtime protections, I've heard from people who were paid 4x their regular salary because they were called in on a Sunday. I'm sure the FAANG pay better, but maybe house + family + free time is nicer than high numbers in your online banking?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The US is pretty awesome if you're in the top 10%. Of course, more than 10% of the US population likes to believe they are in the top 10% or have a chance at being in the top 10% in the future.
orf 6y ago
You’re only fooling yourself if you look at the raw values rather than quality of life and relative cost of living.
- est31 6y ago
  You could live in the US for a few years, and then come back to Germany so that you can e.g. buy a house without having to pay for it for decades.

jamiequint 6y ago

Then again, maybe the lack of insane regulations on labor (amongst other things) is why the US has managed to produce new, highly-valuable companies at a much higher clip than Europe has, and is also the reason why software engineers in Europe get paid far less than their counterparts in America.

ThePadawan 6y ago
Ignoring the bias in your chosen language, I do somewhat agree with your point. I would also say that "highly-valuable" is not what a country should strive for its companies to be. I would argue that the good of its citizens should be - and rather than $10b of company valuation, the citizens would profit more from that $10b going into labor regulations and social security.

onion2k 6y ago

It happens in the UK. I know plenty of devs here who complain about the "crunch" on projects that really don't need it. Mind you, I also think there's an element of developers lowballing estimates and then putting in extra time to make themselves much more productive than they actually are. I've worked with a few people who management believed were fantastic but who actually just worked 50% longer hours. I fight hard against those kinds of people being on my team because it destroys morale and absolutely ruins my burndown charts any time they're not available.

ThePadawan 6y ago
> [it] absolutely ruins my burndown charts any time they're not available. This is the one point where I'm very happy that my work committed to the (legally already obligatory) time tracking. If you do 20h overtime, that just means you spent 20h extra on this sprint, and SP/h should be unaffected (thus also the burndown chart).
- onion2k 6y ago
  If you do 20h overtime, that just means you spent 20h extra on this sprint, and SP/h should be unaffected (thus also the burndown chart). In my experience time isn't recorded, or isn't recorded very accurately, especially when it's unsanctioned and unpaid overtime. Burndown charts report the daily change rather than the hourly change. Consequently it looks like stories are moving quickly but really it's just that more effort is being put in every day, but the chart doesn't reflect that.
  - ThePadawan 6y ago
    Now that you mention it, that was also what our burndown charts looked like (unaffacted). Our Scrum Master did use a factor of "actual hours worked vs. planned hours worked" to determine how accurate our SP totals per sprint were. I.e. if we did 100SP in Sprint 1 with no overtime, then 100SP in Sprint 2 with 20h of overtime, we underestimate the SP in Sprint 2. I am generally not a fan of time tracking (especially not down to minute accuracy or per-story), but I see sth. like "8.7 hours worked on Tuesday" as a useful but not misleading measure.